Blog It Out - All Blogged Out

I haven't read this but it felt appropriate; I'm sure reading it would help, but then how would you see into my head?

I thought writing those posts would help my emotional state and I wasn't wrong.  My emotions feel life-sized again.  Hurtful, but manageable.  Now comes the fun part: waiting to see whether I have more pain and anger to to express.  If so, how will it present itself?  Finally, can I resist taking it out on those closest to me?

I probably have more pain, tears, and anger.  In fact, I'm sure of it.  As Glen Duncan writes in The Last Werewolf, "Once you've stopped loving someone, breaking his or her heart's just an unpleasant chore you have to get behind you."  Being on the receiving end of that treatment - especially over the course of months, to see this person you've loved so well for so long become completely indifferent to you - is uniquely unmanning.

I'm not worried about how these emotions bubble up because I've learned to see the symptoms.  I'm also not worried about taking it out on my family, because Uncle Fester no longer waltzes into my mind, kicks his feet up, and makes himself comfortable.  We verbally spar instead.  Well, once we sparred for about half a day.  The other times, I heard him open his mouth and was like, "Shut the fuck up, Fester."

And he did.

On a related note, I'm really looking forward to the new Mel Gibson movie where he talks to a beaver puppet to deal with his negative emotions.

Pictured: Me and Uncle Fester having a rational discussion

Blog it Out Four - Anger

Anger has always been the most difficult emotion for me to express. 

Don’t blame me; it’s filial.  Grandpa used to beat grandma.  My father grew up watching that and swore to himself that he would never.  He kept his promise and became passive-aggressive.  He spent my childhood brooding silently, a lump in a lounge chair, the angry God who slept beneath the volcano.  He didn’t use fists, but he did use his voice.  He has a tone that can wither flowers, destroy sunshine, and make you feel like you’ve never been worthy of love and never will be.  

I have that tone.  It’s taken me decades to understand where it comes from, and get rid of it.  I also have the same problem my dad has expressing anger.  I feel like the world will come apart if I do.

As we all know, depression is anger turned inward.  I might have some residual depression to work out from my divorce, but what I really am is angry.  

I have every right to be angry.  She pulled away, she did the cheating, she looked around at our life and decided to destroy it.  I had a peaceful heart once, but now I don’t.  She destroyed that, too.

I hate her for that.  I hate her for it, and I’m allowed to, dammit.  I am allowed to hate my ex-wife for breaking my heart.  

When I told my uncle Dom about the upcoming nuptials, he asked if I was going to tell Andi.  He might as well have asked if I was planning on running a marathon.  I can’t say running one is an awful idea, but it’s just never occurred to me that it’s something I might do. 

“Do you think I should?” I asked.

“Oh, I can’t answer that,” he said.

I thought about it.  I saw the logic (and we’ve all seen that movie); I’d rather you hear it from me than someone else.  But the truth is, I don’t care where or if she hears about my marriage.  Like my life, it has nothing to do with her.  That’s the beauty of divorce.  If I don’t want to consider her feelings, I don’t have to.  At all.  

If I ruin my relationship with Becky because of my ex, because of my broken heart, because of my anger and hatred... well, I can try hating my ex for destroying two marriages, but I doubt the lie would last.  

If I don’t work these feelings out, they will poison what Becky and I have.   

But I’ll have no one to blame except myself.

Blog it Out Three - Festival of Festering

Uncle Fester squatted in my head like bloated, ornery toad, culminating in a bad evening of snapping at Dylan and Becky for no reason.  Alone in the kitchen while I was lighting a gas burner, those physical symptoms which accompany Uncle Fester at his worst - the choke collar, the weight on my chest, the pounding in my skull - all clamped down like a vise.  I’ve suffered panic attacks before but this was different.  Instead of thinking I was dying, I was afraid I wouldn’t die, but my life would be miserable.  

I felt that way as long as I could stand it.  

Then I took the wooden match I’d used to light the stove and held the head to the flesh inside my arm.

The closest I’ve come to something like that was dragging the scooped edge on top of a safety pin over my forearm in middle school.  I wanted it to scar, so I picked at the scab every time it formed.  If I was going to practice self-mutilation as a coping mechanism, you’d think I would have discovered it earlier in life. 

The burning match head brought Fester up short.  A second match, allowed to burn longer to get good and hot and used more quickly once the the flame was blown out - not the desperate use of anything at hand to stop the flood of emotions but an intentional match - well, that second match sent Fester away.

The following morning was even worse.  I’ve blocked it out, but I know it wasn’t pretty.  Becky left to drop Dylan off at school.  I fully expected her to come back and tell me she hadn’t signed on for this, to get my shit together or get lost.  

Alone in a house which Fester had robbed of all cheer and warmth, the physical symptoms threatened to overwhelm me again.  I heard a voice, my old friend Maria Clara Ferri.  During that first week of my separation, Maria told there’d be times I’d be miserable, and I had to allow myself to be miserable.

So I did.  I stopped wondering why I was feeling so desolate and let the tears come.  At the height of this sobbing jag, I surprised myself by barking, “She left me” at the empty house.  

I didn’t mean Becky to drop off Dylan, either. 

Uncle Fester has visited twice since then.  Both times, his stay has been shorter.  I think the third time he might have even been easier to ignore, but I could be fooling myself.  Maybe he’s just saving up for one big push to make me ruin my new life, but there’s no way of knowing.  

See?

When Becky returned that awful, awful morning, I apologized.  I told her I was scared.  Scared of us not working out, of losing her, of being heartbroken again.

She offered assurances, but in the end it’s me.  When Fester has me, I can’t feel her love.  That’s his worst power.  I can’t feel Becky’s love, at all.    

Blog it Out Two - Uncle Fester

My last post I mentioned my world spiraling into a blue-black swirl of pain, my thoughts co-opted by someone who only sees the negative everywhere he looks.  I’m going to call this mindframe Uncle Fester (mindset + frame of mind = mindframe).  

Not this lovable.

The first visit I got from Uncle Fester was over something so embarrassingly trivial I can’t even name it here, so I’ll make up something equally trivial to give you an idea of how ridiculous the cause was.  I asked Becky to do the dishes after I cooked dinner, and she didn’t.

Maybe she was going to do dishes in the morning.  Maybe she was going to wash them after work, before she made dinner.  Maybe she expected me to do them.  Whatever the reason, each dirty dish was a weight on a scale, measuring our relationship.

Look at those dishes, Aaron, Uncle Fester said.  If it’s like this after two years, what do you think it will be like after twenty?  If she cares this little for you now, it’s just going to get worse down the line.  Problem is, you’re in love.  You can’t leave.  You’ll just have to wait it out until she gets sick of your old, tired, saggy ass, you’ll just have to let her drag you through shit until she’s bored to tears just looking at you, until she wises up and leaves.

Uncle Fester stayed a sold week, maybe longer.  Knowing the cause was trivial didn’t help in the slightest.  In fact, it made it worse.  The more I told Uncle Fester to let it go, to get over it, to stop being so silly, the harder he clawed his way through my thoughts, tearing everything to bleary ruin.  

I tried keeping it to myself.  Or maybe it was too overwhelming to talk about, this feeling that the dream I’d been living for months had become a nightmare.  Trying to keep it inside proved less than effective.

“Do you want a ride now, or should I pick Dylan up first and come back for you so you have more time to work?”  Becky’s questions were all innocence.  She thought she was talking to the man she loved, not Uncle Fester.

If I catch a ride now, will the dishes be done? Fester hissed.

“Whatever,” I’d snap, “Who cares?  Do want you want, what difference does it make.”

Yeah, more like that.

Fester pissed on everything.  

That’s a great story, does it wash dishes?  Because I’m going to Book Club tonight, it means the dishes don’t get cleaned?  I’m trying to listen but I can’t hear you over the SOUND OF THE DIRTY DISHES.

Again I find myself saying that wanting to be over something doesn’t mean I am.  

Blog it Out

In a post from October 2009, right before Becky and I started dating, I said that I’d never again make the mistake of censoring my blog based on who reads it.  This is tough when what you want to write about is doubting your relationship, and the person you live with is who you’re marrying in five months.

My Gaba moved to Seattle (damn his evil heart for leaving) after ending a seven-year relationship.  He got together with TheOneTheyCallB after seven months.  He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, and they’re getting married next month.  In fact, seeing pictures of the beautiful engagement ring is one of the things which kept me from proposing (damn his decent-wage-paying job for delaying my happiness).  

Getting together fairly quickly has led to its share of problems for Gaba and TOTCB.  What those problems are, I have no idea.  Early in my relationship with Becky, TOTCB and I shared some correspondence.  I wondered how things would work for me.  I worried I was suppressing pain under the glow of new love, I worried because of warnings against rebound relationships.  

TOTCB made a comment like, “Gaba and I went through a lot of that at first, believe me.  It wasn’t easy but we got through it.”  I wondered, what’s that about?

Well, now I know.  

The saying goes, Sing like no one’s listening, dance like no one’s watching, and love like you’ve never been hurt.  Now that I can think straight (and by that I mean it feels like I’ve stopped drifting through a storm and picked up my oars once again), that last part is proving more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

Every misunderstanding feels like the end of the world.  Complicating matters, I also can’t talk about them for some reason.  Something as simple as, “When you joked about_____ it made me feel _____” is like trying to lift a building.  I don’t even know how to begin a task so impossible, let alone have the tools or strength to accomplish it.  So the tiny (usually imagined) slight festers like a splinter.  It festers and it poisons my thoughts.  

My head belongs to someone else, someone I dislike intensely, someone who only sees faults everywhere he looks, be it the mirror, his life, or the woman he loves.  I develop a lump in my throat, pounding around the base of my skull, and pressure in my chest.  I doubt everything.  I doubt her love.  I doubt mine.  The world feels like a bluish-black swirl of pain, sucking me down into it’s pit.  I want nothing more than to curl into a ball under my desk, or inside a closet, anywhere dark, enclosed, and hidden.  

I can’t get over my divorce, for some reason.  On my divorce post, I said there must be a finite number of tears you can shed over someone.  Either I was wrong, or I had more tears to shed.

Well, I can’t afford a shrink.  All I have is Sweet.

Bear with me. 

A Rare Sports Reference*

         I was never any good at sports, but I once saw how people can be.  During a neighborhood football game, the QB singled me out in the huddle.  Normally my reaction is panic, wondering whether I’ll catch the ball, and what will happen next if I do.  This one time, just this once in all the downs I’ve played in my life, I saw it all.  I’d line up, I’d hook right, I’d catch the ball, I’d pivot upfield and score.  It was done before we clapped our hands and broke the huddle.  

I lined up and waited for the snap.  I wasn’t even nervous, because it had already happened in my mind.  I ran a short hook right, caught the pass like it was the most natural thing in the world, pivoted left, and scored a touchdown.

I must have felt that way a time or two in my life, but only once comes to mind.  Standing on a corner in Coral Gables, waiting for the light to change, carrying Dylan in my left arm, holding Becky in my right, both of them holding me tight. 

I saw our family; I saw home.

* I'm offering this post now because the next few posts are rough.  

I Dreamed of Big House

In the dream we always live together, every family member I’ve ever had, Becky and her friends and family.  Tota is there, but she can hear, and she can still dance, drive, and throw a punch to anyone who disrespects the family.  The uncle I lost at nine to alcoholism is there.  I don’t remember him but there’s an uncle-shaped man of smiles and living room rug-wrestling who I call Fran.  Friends live here too, friends who’ve wandered from me over the years, or who I’ve let slip away.  There are endless rooms for all in this house, solitude when it’s needed, and adventure in undiscovered rooms.  Everyone is happy.  

I’ve yet to decide if this is my vision of heaven.  If hell is other people it can’t be heaven, right?  But that’s a question for another post.

In last night’s dream, Becky and I buy a home and everyone we’ve ever known moves in (I use “buy” loosely; these dream homes just kind of happen).  Everyone loves it immediately.  The vibe is perfect and the foundation is solid, even if there are spots which need work.  

Everyone runs out front onto the rolling hills of lawn for a huge night barbecue lit by paper lawn lanterns (thanks, Blood, Bones, and Butter).  I look back at the house, the windows blazing light, the balconies on each floor which run the entire length of the front of the house.

While I’m looking, feeling great because we’ve found such amazing accommodations, the front balcony falls off and lands on me.  Laying there stunned, pinned beneath the rubble (thanks, re-watching the first season of Lost), I open my mouth to call out to the friends and family who are already down the hill at the feast.  Losing the first balcony has caused others to loosen.  I close my eyes as two more fall toward me, thinking, this is going to be bad. 

When I wake up (I use “wake” loosely, since I’m still dreaming), we’re all inside the house again.  The mood is subdued.  My head is wrapped in so many bandages I can barely see.  Becky is nowhere.  My hand hurts.  Lifting it from my lap, I see the fingers are splayed in all directions.  The skin of my forearm is misshapen with broken bone trying to poke through.  My biceps and triceps are severed slabs of meat, the gleaming white humerus the only thing keeping my arm from falling off.  Didn’t anyone look past my head for injuries?  What kind of hospital did they take me to?   

  Turns out no one wants to take me back.  They’ve been through the interminable waiting room once for my head, they’re not going back for my arm.  They’d rather busy themselves prepping food, or lay around playing video games, they’d rather not make eye contact so I won’t see their guilt.

Not much interpretation needed.  

My first marriage crumbled and my friends and family put me back together again.  Now that I’m starting a new family, part of me worries it won’t work out.  If it doesn’t, another part of me worries no one will be interested in helping me back on my feet a second time.  

Well, I’ve dreamed that house a dozen times and it always holds.  

Also, it’s clear that I’ve not fully healed from the destruction of my marriage.  The most obvious hurt is gone, but there are still glaring wounds when you know where to look.  

Bones, poking at the skin.

Dear Passport Application: Don't Judge Me

Becky and I are getting married on Friday, September 16th, 2011.

The divorce from my first marriage was final on September 3rd, 2010.

I didn’t really think about that until I was filling you out.  I tried talking to you last year, but your marriage questions thwarted my efforts.  You didn’t just want to know if I was married, single, separated or divorced, you asked if I’ve ever been married.  Sure, whether one has been married informs a large part of one’s identity, but what do you care, passport?  You even wanted dates, and got picky about it.  You wouldn’t take my court appointment as the end date of my marriage because it was in the future.  Fine.

So here we are again.  I tell you the dates of my marriage.  I use Becky as my emergency contact.  Under relationship, I put fiance.  You ask why I need you.  I tell you for my honeymoon on 9/17/11, and you’re dated 4/21/11. 

It’s not like I got divorced, met a stranger, and got engaged in seven months, passport application.  It just looks that way.  

Listen, application - that marriage ended two years ago, more than two years ago, now.  Becky and I were colleagues, so even if I never looked at her in a certain light, I knew the cut of her jib.  She got divorced after I did and they hadn’t lived together for years, are you going to judge her, too?

You know what, application?  There are whole worlds out there you have no idea about, lives lived in the margins outside your paragraphs, emotions bubbling in the spaces between your lines.  You don’t even have ideas, you’re just paper.  Paper, and one really bad photo.

Guess what else?  I found my favorite white wine at Walgreens for $3.99 when I was getting that lousy picture taken.  You didn’t know that, did you? 

I do not have shitty taste in wine.

Look, I don’t need your attitude right now, okay?  It’s not my fault they made you more expensive and required you for a night in Niagara Falls.  Just do your job, get me over the border, and no one will get hurt.

In the meantime, let’s keep this between us.

I Have News

First, there was Gabrielle Hamilton’s beautiful memoir, Blood, Bones, and Butter.  Her father taught her that money, specifically a lack of money, is a stupid reason not to do something.

That phrase haunted me for a time.

Then over vodka at Fox’s Lounge, two wise friends offered counsel.  

Finally, a line from Darin Strauss’ Half a Life jumped from the page (and the subject matter), telling me: 

"That's the meter you come up with, as you approach forty.  If your relationship fills you with a sense of luck, you've chosen well."

Of course you could argue these aren’t signs in and of themselves, but merely one big sign that I’m ready.  I don’t feel like arguing. 

We had a couple of friends over for dinner, trying to get through beer left over from hosting Becky’s sister’s 30th birthday party.  Becky and I also removed Dylan’s first splinter.  Our friends ran interference by way of entertainment while I used a needle to break the skin on the sole of his foot.  It had grown over, looking nasty and red.  Once I exposed the splinter, Becky performed the extraction.    

After five minutes of freaking out, crying, squirming, and refusing uncover his foot, Dylan chose to be brave.  You could see it happen.  Still crying, he stood up straight, moved to his mother’s lap, took out his Nintendo DS, and pretended his foot belonged to someone else.  Becky and I worked together seamlessly, as we often do.    

Dinner was filled with laughter.

Sitting on our stoop after our guests had gone, I couldn’t imagine life getting any better.  Like the first time I told Becky I loved her, I simply couldn’t hold it inside any longer.  With just the right amount of beer in my system (enough to lubricate the tongue without the origin of the emotion being suspect), I told Becky I needed to ask her a question.  I told her to be honest, and I would believe her.

I asked her if she needed a ring.

She said no.

So I asked her to marry me, and she agreed.

It wasn’t how I imagined it at all.  Later that night, she dug a princess-cut pink “diamond” surrounded by smaller white “diamonds” from her jewelry box (this is an actual cardboard box, by the way).  She’d gotten the ring from lost and found when she worked at Barnes & Noble and had never worn it.  I took the ring from her, then got down on one knee and described how I had wanted my proposal to go.

My description was muddied because I’d imagined it so many different ways.  I’d get Papa Q’s permission, and Dylan’s.  I’d get a credit card and max it out to buy the perfect ring, princess cut in a platinum setting.  It would be a birthday or holiday to disguise the intent, either a really fancy dinner at a new place or a familiar dinner at one of our places.  Afterward there’d be a movie, or coffee and dessert somewhere else just for the decadence.  I’d pull her close when we got home, then accidentally-on-purpose drop my keys.  I wasn’t sure if I’d do the “hold this” a la Adrian in Sex in the City or just grab her hand and launch into my speech, happiest man alive, try to make you happy for as long as we live, share our lives, etc, etc.    

I don’t know how much of this I managed to get across.  The night I proposed is a blur of emotions, difficult to see beneath the relief that I didn’t need to wait, and that she said yes.

Darin Strauss, my friends, and Gabrielle Hamilton’s father were all right.  I feel lucky, Becky didn’t need a ring, and lack of money is a stupid reason not to do something.

Even marry the woman of your dreams.

City Link Magazine Starts a Monthly Lip Service Column

I wrote a piece called Kelly Cook for myself, which is why I write anything.  I had no idea I'd edit it into something to be performed in front of a crowd, a piece called We Are More Than These Pale Shells.  Further, I never imagined Lip Service would get together with City Link, re-edit the piece for print, couple it with some amazing artwork, and publish it again as Past the Flesh.

Re-reading it as Past the Flesh, I'm proud of my work and grateful for the opportunity to reach such a wide readership, but it's not the tribute to Kelly I had intended.  Trying to come up with one makes me realize it's impossible.  

In this picture, Kelly's emitting the laugh I mention in every version of the piece.  I had several pictures to choose from, and in every one of them she's laughing or smiling, and all eyes are on her (here I cropped my high school girlfriend and a boy whose name escapes me; both were staring at Kelly, laughing right along with her).  That laugh embodies Kelly.  When I close my eyes and imagine hearing it, I smile at the same time I'm missing her.

Hearing Kelly's laugh made you forget there was pain in the world. 

Given how prone the rest of us can be to whining about our lives, obsessing over slights imagined and real, wishing we had more and better, a person like Kelly holds the mirror to that behavior.  What right do I have to be miserable when my friend with cystic fribrosis is always happy?  How could someone so delicate be so filled with life? 

We'll never know if she would have been an accomplished artist, but she was certainly talented enough to stand out at our small school.  Kelly was kind to her friends, generous with her time and attention, and a joy to be around.   

The printed version of City Link’s table of contents was topped with Kelly’s words: “God, you’re such an asshole.  Can’t you just be happy?”  When she said that to me, it was probably the only time I saw her upset.  

I’d love it if I could say that I always look on the bright side of life because of her, but it’s a lesson I running into in one form or another again and again.  

I can say she the first teacher person who taught me that lesson, and I was lucky to know her.  

I wish I’d treated her better.

Dear Mom and Dad: I'm Sorry for How I Acted

I know you can only count on a yearly call a couple weeks before it’s time to come up for Thanksgiving so we can schedule an airport pickup.  I might call once every couple years on your birthdays, or Mother’s Dad and Father’s Day (never both), but you’re always in my thoughts.  Especially now that there’s a child in my life.

What I want to know is, how the hell did you do this?  How did you raise a child not just once, but three fucking times?

My fingers are shaking so badly I can barely type.  It’s nothing major, just a normal child-rearing night gone wrong.  He pitches one fit too many, his tone is a little too bossy and demanding, he won’t listen just once more than you can take, so you tell him there will be nothing fun tonight.  He will eat, and he will go to bed.

He doesn’t like this.  At all.  Sure he’s exhausted and could use the early night of rest, but that’s not the point.  The point is, he’s not getting his way, and he needs you to know he’s not happy about it.  The end is fairly dramatic, a slammed glass of milk splattered everywhere, the child sent to bed without dinner.  

The screaming and crying continue, because he’s not happy with this development either.  

Now you’re at a crossroads.  Did the thousand little ways he tested you all day entirely deflate your patience?  Do you have one parenting urge that hasn’t been worn away by the incessant questions, neediness, wheedling, cajoling, bargaining, ignoring, whining, pleading, and crying?  It feels like you have nothing left to give; it would be so much easier to scream back.

I’m leaning over the oven, emotionally exhausted. The kitchen and dishes are clean, so I can’t avoid him any longer.  His behavior has been and continues to be terrible, and he’s headed for a spanking.  I don’t want to deliver one because I never have and I’m not sure I’d know how, but his actions leave little room for anything else.

How did you do this? 

I hear Dad’s voice in my head, answering me with a slanted grin.  Not very well.  Then my mom’s voice.  Kent, that doesn’t help him.  Yet somehow it does.

I go to Dylan’s bed and tell him he’s headed for a spanking.  That I can’t give it tonight because I’m so upset that I might accidentally hurt him, but that if we need to tell him one more time to be quiet and sleep, he will get a spanking first thing in the morning.       

When the fit continues because he’s hungry and doesn’t want a spanking, I scoop him into my arms.  I hold him close and speak into the soft skin of his neck.  I don’t want to hurt your feelings little one, but the world doesn’t revolve around what you want.  Forget about dinner.  Your behavior gave dinner away tonight.  It doesn’t mean we don’t love you.  Now.  You can choose to go to sleep, or you can choose to get a spanking.  It’s up to you.  I don’t want to spank you, and you don’t want to get spanked.  So pick.

He chose sleep.  I chose a big glass of Chateau Ste Michelle dry riesling.  

I think we both slept content.          

We've Created a Monster

When we moved to Madrid Street, Dylan had a tough time sleeping alone.  While we stayed together at her parents' place, Becky and I read to him, then we'd turn the lights out and settle in to his bed.  When Dylan fell asleep, Becky and I would leave.  He had curled up with Becky and I a few times in the middle of the night, but I didn't know it was a "thing." 

In Dylan's mind, the three of us slept together the whole night.  Waking up alone was disorienting and frightening, so he'd come down the hall and cuddle with us.  Until we shared our own roof, I didn't realize those nights Becky and I spent alone were nights Dylan slept straight through.  Getting used to the new place must have been difficult for Dylan; he joined us every night.

I couldn't sleep.

He's squirmy and kicky , but that's only part of it.  I'm used to the feel, sounds, and smells of a woman in my bed, but a six-year-old was a different kettle of fish.  His presence felt strange.  Time would change that, but I also had silly concerns which I didn't know were silly, like. . . what if I rolled over and crushed him?  What if I popped a woody and he noticed?  Was seeing his petite little mom sleeping with this two-hundred pound lummox scarring his psyche?  Laying awake and worrying sucked most of the night away.  I'd be forced to my old day bed to catch a few quick hours before it was time to get up and write.  

I decided Dylan was old enough to sleep alone, and Becky agreed.

Rather than ask my own parents, or my siblings with grown children of their own, for advice, I Googled to see what had worked for a bunch of strangers.  Maybe that's just a symptom of modern living.  Maybe I'm embarrassed over my lack of knowledge, or for getting such a late start relative to my relatives (even though I'm sure my family would be thrilled to help).  Anyway, I emailed a list of techniques and suggestions to Becky.

That night at dinner (one of Becky's strengths is that she doesn't talk or plan something to death; once she decides, she acts)  Becky told Dylan he'd better spend the whole night in his own bed, otherwise the Sleep Fairy wouldn't visit him.

The Sleep Fairy barely merited mention in the stuff I sent to Becky.  Truthfully, I thought the idea was lame, but I wanted to be thorough.  Becky, however, knows what works.  

Dylan's eyes grew wide.

"What's the Sleep Fairy?"

Becky explained that the Sleep Fairy visits houses and leaves little gifts for children who spend the whole night in their own bed.  That night, after being tucked in, Dylan suddenly sat upright.

"I love you, Sleep Fairy!" he called.  "I believe in you!"

He's slept on his own ever since, and all it costs me is some Star Wars miniatures I had when I was a kid.  As Becky says, parenting is bribery and broken promises.

Google promised the Sleep Fairy would gradually fade from our lives as Dylan no longer needs her, which is true.  Google didn't mention that she was married to Santa Claus ("What about Mrs. Claus, Dylan?"  "Mrs. Claus is the Sleep Fairy."  Duh.), or that she would morph into the Finish Your Dinner Fairy, or the Don't Have an Accident in Your Pants Fairy.  When Dylan refused to eat, or "forgot" to use the toilet, the Sleep Fairy got a note and Dylan got nothing.

But lately Dylan seems to have forgotten the Sleep Fairy.  He's finished his dinners, kept his underwear clean, and managed to listen just enough to keep Becky and I from blowing up.  I've left a one-inch die-cast metal Han Solo and a Luke Skywalker in the usual place, and they've gone untouched. 

Thursday night, looking at broiled chicken with a side of corn risotto, Dylan wanted to know what he would "get" if he finished his dinner.  How about good nutrition?  How about you don't get sent to bed?  How about Becky and I don't get upset with you, and we enjoy a nice evening together?  That meant nothing to him.  

I suppose we could blame ourselves, but I'd rather blame that stupid Sleep Fairy.

I'll be Home for Christmas

I grew up in Syracuse, which just experienced 97 consecutive hours of snow. My first experience of Christmas in Miami was on video.  Watching Andi and Jim on their front lawn, wearing shorts and t-shirts, fighting with the water guns they'd just gotten under the tree, I immediately decided Christmas in Miami did not exist.  

I moved here in 1998.  Sometimes there were decorations and a tree, sometimes not.  Sometimes we'd eat at the in-law's, sometimes a friend's, sometimes at the brother-in-law's, and sometimes at home.  We always exchanged gifts, stuffed stockings, listened to holiday music, drank egg nog, and spread holiday cheer, but nothing in thirteen years of semi-tropical merriment filled me with the excitement and joy I always associated with Christmas up north snow or no snow.  

Supposedly it's bad trying to relive your childhood through your own children.  You get the high you used to feel by seeing something through their eyes, which is fine, but the danger is you might end up resenting the children for not having all the fun and happiness you remember (or imagine you remember).  

Well, screw the danger.  Whether it was Dylan, Becky, or the way the three of us have become a family, I now know Christmas comes to Miami.

We opened our gifts Christmas morning.  Dylan, who wants to be an immediate expert at everything he tries, became frustrated with the Beyblades he got.  If you're unfamiliar, Beyblades are the dramatic re-imagining of tops.  You spin them together in a plastic arena to battle, and the last one spinning is the winner.  

Beyblades are for ages eight and up, and they're tough for little fingers to put back together when they fall apart.  I warned Dylan if he threw another fit about the Beyblades, I'd put them away for two years, until he was old enough to use them.  I was preparing breakfast for a crowd, Becky was frantically cleaning, and if he wanted to play instead of helping, he needed to do it without the drama.

As Christmas approached, Dylan has been a handful and a half.  Both Becky and I have wanted to cancel Christmas at least once.  One fine day, after blowing most of a paycheck on Santa's toys, he decided it was time to see who was in charge around the house while mommy wasn't around.  I stormed into his room and yelled, "Guess what? I fucking AM Santa Claus!  Unless you want me to bring everything back and use the money to fly your mother and I to New Orleans, you better clean your goddamn room NOW!"  

Well, no.  But I thought about it.  Hard.  A few mornings later, Becky and he screamed at each-other.  Both of them ended up crying and shaking with anger and frustration.  

We told ourselves he'd be better once Christmas finally got here.      

Of course, Christmas morning, Dylan threw another fit when the Beyblades fell apart.  I had to put them away, and his snit became a crying tantrum.  Becky and I didn't get upset with him for ruining Christmas, imagining our childhood selves as dancing sugar plums of joy.  I hugged him and told him it didn't mean we didn't love him.  Becky invited him to play with the piles of other toys Santa brought. 

Parenting is one of those things you'll never understand unless you experience it yourself.  By extension, you can't understand your own parents without being a parent yourself.  You might think you know how you feel about your parents, but being a parent will cast those feelings in a new light.  I've never felt closer to my family than while forming my own.  

The Quiroga Clan joined us for breakfast, as well as Carroll, and it was beautiful.

When they left, Becky and I enjoyed our first Christmas waking in the same house.

After twelve years in Miami, Christmas finally found me.